I agree largely with what the Parliamentary Secretary has said, that the money that is being raised as a result of these Sweeps could have been allocated in a very much better way, and no doubt would have been had anybody visualised at the outset that the Sweepstakes were going to be of the enormous proportions which they have assumed, and if anybody had thought that the vast sums which would be made available by those Sweepstakes would be available for hospital development in the country. If that had been visualised at the outset, no doubt a very different method of dealing with these very large sums of money would have been adopted. I know that when the first sweepstake was started there was a very large hope in the minds of some people, taking as they thought, a very sanguine view of the matter, that you might get in between £10,000 and £20,000 as a result of the Sweepstake and have that available for the hospitals. Well, I need hardly say that that hope has not only been realised, but has been realised one might say a hundred, almost a thousand times over.
If it were known that sums running into millions would be raised by these Sweeps, no doubt the proper course would have been to keep the entire of that money and probably to amalgamate all the existing hospitals in Dublin, not possibly all, but at any rate, to have three or four at the outset absolutely up-to-date hospitals equipped in every way in this city. That would have been a far better and a more economical way of spending the money, but as I have said nobody has visualised that these large sums would have been raised, and in consequence they had to be dealt with piecemeal. I am afraid that it will be very difficult now, because a great deal of money has been expended, to do more than deal with it not completely piecemeal but in rather a piecemeal fashion. I know it is suggested that certain hospitals in Dublin should amalgamate instead of having two or three small hospitals. That seems to me, so far as I can gather from those who have expert knowledge on the matter, to be a consummation devoutly to be wished.
I hope that something of that nature will be embodied in the new Bill which we are promised. At any rate, I trust that an effort in that direction will be made. It was pointed out in a debate in the Seanad by a Senator who is a master in this particular line that in the city of Vienna, which is very much larger than the city of Dublin, there is only one hospital. That obviates the duplication of equipment in a large number of hospitals and other expenses of that nature. That makes for efficiency and economy, and I should like to see carried out as near an approach to amalgamation of hospitals here as is possible. I do not mean that existing hospitals, which have been very largely improved by this expenditure, should necessarily be scrapped but that the hospitals should be more specialised, one hospital being almost confined to surgical cases and another almost confined to medical cases. I do not suggest that there should be a hard and fast line in that respect. I do not believe that that would be possible, but I believe that something in that direction should be done and that these large sums should be made available, so that Dublin would have the best hospital system in the world, as it has, undoubtedly, got the largest amount of money for hospital purposes of any city of its size. The same remark applies to Cork because, in proportion to size, Cork has received a larger sum from the Sweepstakes than Dublin has received.
I should like the Parliamentary Secretary, in the absence of the Minister for Justice to consider certain points in Section 2, which is the keynote of Deputy Murphy's Bill. Certain hospitals cannot provide the accommodation required under Section 2. It was for that reason that certain institutions, such as the Eye and Ear Hospital, the Consumptive Home, the Cabra Institutes and certain other institutions of that type had to be specially mentioned. It would be impossible for them to provide accommodation at the rate suggested here.
I find very grave difficulty in discovering how a provision of this nature could be carried out. How long is it to be carried out, and what are the methods by which it is to be carried out? A hospital board may say to the Minister for Justice: "Yes, we shall provide a certain number of beds." What machinery are you going to have, five years or ten years from now, when the Sweepstakes have ceased to be, to see that that undertaking is being carried out and, if it is not being carried out, what punishment are you going to inflict upon the offending hospital for failing to keep its engagement? A great deal of the money will have been expended and it will be almost impossible to get it back. I see very grave difficulty in making this an effective and workable measure.
I am entirely in favour of the principle of Deputy Murphy's Bill. During the debates on one of these Hospital Bills—I do not know whether it was the main Bill or one of the amending Bills—I expressed the hope that when the hospitals had received very large sums of money, when the hospitals which were struggling had become wealthy institutions, they would be in a position to deal with the cases of the poor in a way in which they could not deal with the poor before they had received these sums of money. It may not, at present, be quite right to condemn a particular hospital for not acting precisely in the way one would like to see it act and in which that hospital, without any legislation, may, on its own initiative, act two or three years from now, when it has carried out the improvements which it intends to carry out and when it has invested the moneys, finally and completely allocated from Sweepstakes, for the purpose of its maintenance. I still take the optimistic view. I still think that the hospitals and the boards controlling them are philanthropic, that they are not out to make money, that they are out to make ends meet, and that if they cannot make ends meet without receiving payment from patients, then they have to receive payment. I believe that as soon as they can make ends meet without receiving contributions from poor persons or struggling persons, they will cease to levy these contributions. It is not only the class of persons referred to by Deputy Murphy that is affected in this connection. There is another class which is, perhaps, harder hit. I mean the clerical class who cannot receive public assistance and who find it very hard indeed to make ends meet. When a member of that class has to go to hospital he is crushed down by the weight of the cost of treatment. That section of the middle class is really in as much need of free treatment or treatment at very moderate cost as any other class. I believe that that will be recognised by the boards of the hospitals, and that when they are enriched an effort will be made to help not merely the poor but the struggling middle class by providing treatment free or at very moderate cost.
I have not the remotest idea of what hospital Deputy Murphy is referring to, but before he completely condemns that hospital I would ask him to ascertain what position it is in—how much money it has received and how much of that money it has had to spend on necessary improvements, because I believe that some of the Dublin hospitals were in a most shocking condition. Some of them had no baths for their patients. That was true of even one very large Dublin hospital. They were in a shocking state as regards equipment and they had to put money, in the first instance, into alterations of that type, which while they made them better hospitals did not place them in a better position to deal with the poor. I hold no brief for any hospital committee and I am not a member of any hospital committee, but I would ask Deputy Murphy and others not to condemn any hospital hastily. They may have a very good answer in their balance sheet to the case made against them.
